From:	David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject:	Defaulting (was Summer Time)
Date:	Tue, 19 May 1998 07:56:26 -0600

Ereskanti wrote:
/
/ yes folks, I think it's finally official. Either that, or the email programs
/ of the world have come to a grinding halt on many fronts. The list traffic
/ has dropped back down to levels similar to "Holiday" and "Summer"
that I have
/ seen before...

Yep. Kinda nice. It's like a cool summer breeze :)

/ So, what nice little topics should we come up for the hard core members???

Okay :)

Who's had this happen? You're GMing and the PCs want to do something
that nobody has the skill for. And it's a high TN. Someone defaults
and pumps in as much dice pool as they can, spends Karma to re-roll,
and ends up with a gazzilion successes. Bleurg :(

I've seen house rules that address the use of dice pools and/or karma
to address the issue. But these change the entire structure of the
game. I've also seen some funky ideas for changing the default
rules, but I haven't liked any of them. Well, recently I had a new
(I think :) idea.

When a character defaults increase the TN by +1 for every dot the
character has to go through on the skill web.

And, divide the number of successes rolled by the number of dots
between the default skill/attribute and the required skill/attribute,
plus 1 (round down). Actual Successes = Rolled Successes/(dots +
1).

If a character defaults and has to go through one dot on the skill
web the TN has a +1 modifier, and the number of successes rolled will
be divided by 2. If he had to go through 3 dots there would be a +3
modifier and the number of rolled successes would be divided by 4.

Janet picks up Karl's HMG and fires it at the AZ security guards (who
just dropped Karl with a withering hail of lead). Janet doesn't
have the Heavy Weapons skill. However, she can default from a skill
2 dots away on the skill web. She has a +2 modifier to her target
number. Janet is a PC and uses combat pool and karma pool to get 5
successes. Because she defaulted through 2 dots her successes are
divided by 3 (2 + 1), resulting in 1 actual success (5 / 3 = 1.6,
which rounds down to 1).

-David
--
"Never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.
For you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
--
email: dbuehrer@******.carl.org
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm